Tracy Baim: a gay-media torchbearer

Tracy Baim, author of "Gay Press, Gay Power", she is also publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces Windy City Times.

Tracy Baim, author of "Gay Press, Gay Power", she is also publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces Windy City Times. (Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune)

Rick Kogan

The signs were there: The newspaper Chicago Today ceased publication on Sept. 13, 1974 (my birthday), and the Chicago Daily News published its final edition on March 4, 1978 (Chicago's birthday).

You might think some of us would have taken these as early hints that the days of ink on paper journalism might be coming to an end. But I did not, obviously, and neither did Tracy Baim, who — fresh out of college — co-founded Windy City Times in 1985, then Outlines newspaper in 1987. She is still at it, working energetically as publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces the weekly Windy City Times, Nightspots and other gay publications.

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Maybe we can blame genetics. Both my parents were newspaper folks, and Baim is the daughter of the remarkable Joy Darrow, a former Tribune reporter, managing editor of the Chicago Defender, photographer and human rights activist (and not incidentally the grandniece of Clarence Darrow). Her father was photographer Hal Baim, and her stepfather was Steve Pratt, a Tribune reporter and editor.

In addition to her newspaper/magazine work, Tracy Baim has been a prolific writer/editor, the author of "Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage"; editor and contributor to "Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community"; author of "Gay Games VII: Where the World Meets," a photo book about the 2007 Gay Games VII in Chicago (Baim served as co-vice chair of the Gay Games board); a novel, "The Half Life of Sgt. Jen Hunter"; and co-author of "Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow" and "Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria."

Her most recent book is the fascinating and informative "Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America." At nearly 500 pages, and jampacked with photos and reproduced newspaper and magazine stories/covers, the book is divided into five sections that cover the waterfront, as we used to say in this business. There's a section on the history of discrimination; a gathering of essays by longtime journalists in the gay press; short and incisive histories of 10 gay publications in 10 major cities (among them Los Angeles' Frontiers, Detroit's Between the Lines, The Philadelphia Gay News, Dallas Voice and, naturally, Windy City Times); and more.

Baim is its editor and most compelling contributor. She writes the book's first chapter, "All the News That's Not Fit to Print," which she calls "a look down mainstream-media memory lane," including the scandals that dogged Oscar Wilde; The Kinsey Report; Christine Jorgensen, "the first highly covered person to have a sex change"; 1967's "CBS Reports" installment "The Homosexuals," which was "the first nationwide program on gay issues"; protests against Walter Cronkite and Mike Royko; a muted effort by some Tribune staffers in the late 1980s to come out of the closet; and beyond.

It is a valuable history lesson for all journalists and gives ample reasons for the essential birth of the gay press and its ongoing importance. As Baim concludes the chapter, "The role of gay media continues … because there are ... many cases where the mainstream media are simply parachuting into a story and therefore providing an incomplete and thus inaccurate picture for their readers."

Some casual readers may find themselves overwhelmed by the mountain of information here, as the book often notes some relatively inconsequential and short-lived publications. But when you are putting together a volume as comprehensive as is this one, such excesses can be accepted.

The writing throughout is solid, the voices and opinions surprisingly varied. Baim's voice is the book's most compelling and passionate. She writes about starting a family newsletter when she was 10; starting her career fresh out of Drake University, where she earned a news-editorial degree; and chronicles her life/career in a short but fine chapter titled "The Long Haul," writing, "The funny thing for me all these years has been the multiple hats I have had to wear, just to keep doing what I love to most: reporting."

I went to the book's last chapter, "The Future of Queer Newspapers," also by Baim, with trepidation, expecting to find — as I do every time I discuss the future of ink-on-paper with fellow reporters and editors — bad news.

And there it was: "I know that the Internet is where the growth is, where the future is."

This book is only a bit about that uncertain future, but it makes a strong case that there will never be a lack of stories and news for the gay press to cover, and thus readers who want and need to consume it, in some form. Her Windy City Times now has more readers online than print.

Baim is in for the long haul, and she knows it. The dedication to this book is "To Joy and Steve, who raised me to love the smell of newspaper ink on paper."